Democratic presidential candidates can feel free to absent themselves from an impeachment trial. They can simply explain that the jury is fixed, therefore they cannot absent themselves from the true business of democracy for a sham trial — especially with the (devil) Republicans bragging openly about dragging out the trial just for the purpose of making mischief with the Democratic primary schedules.
Might even be a savvy political move to debunk the Republican “exoneration” of Trump.
* * * * * *
Headline, 1/19/21: Trump flees to Russia to escape criminal prosecution?
Or, maybe if jailed here, Putin will make a deal to trade captured NATO spies (or Snowden?) for Trump. :-O
* * * * * *
Donald Trump is all the president that Al Capone would ever want to be.
I have to tell you, if he loses the Russia relocation makes sense(though the golf sucks). He is going to be convicted after his loss. He is clearly the unindicted co-conspirator in the Cohen conviction.
Big fan of Baker, and I agree that the job losses from 2000 to 2010 were mostly due to trade. But some of his numbers seem to ignore something.
“The New York Times ran a column by Andrew Yang, one of the candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination. Mr. Yang used the piece to repeat his claim that automation is leading to massive job loss.
His one piece of evidence is a study that purports to find that 88 percent of job loss between 2000 and 2010 was due to automation. As I and others have pointed out, it is difficult to take this claim seriously. This was a period in which the trade deficit exploded from 3.0 percent of GDP to almost 6.0 percent of GDP. This would seem to be the more obvious source of job loss.
It is also worth noting that we lost very few manufacturing jobs between 1970 and 2000. Since 2010 we gained a small number of manufacturing jobs. So anyone wanting to push the automation job loss story has to believe that for some reason automation didn’t cause substantial job loss from 1970 and 2000 and then stopped causing job loss in 2010.
I suppose Andrew Yang can believe something like this, but I don’t know too many other people who could consider this story credible.”
It is true that the number of manufacturing workers stayed roughly even from 1970 to 2000, yet what is ignored is that the percent of manufacturing workers in the population declined by half during that period.
Further, he seems to ignore the manufacturing output during that period. I cannot seem to get Fred to give me a history of such from 1970, but there is this regarding the critical period(according to Baker) of 2000 to 2010.
While we know the decline in the number of workers during that period, but baker seems to ignore manufacturing output.
“Manufacturing jobs in the United States have declined considerably over the past several decades, even as manufacturing output – the value of goods and products manufactured in the U.S. – has grown strongly. But while most Americans are aware of the decline in employment, relatively few know about the increase in output, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
Four of every five Americans (81%) know that the total number of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. has decreased over the past three decades, according to the survey of 4,135 adults from Pew Research Center’s nationally representative American Trends Panel. But just 35% know that the nation’s manufacturing output has risen over the same time span, versus 47% who say output has decreased and 17% who say it’s stayed about the same. Only 26% of those surveyed got both questions right.”
In that link there is a chart that shows output increased about 25% from 2000 to 2008(and the onset of the recession) and then came back down to the same output level by 2010. And that output was with millions of job losses.
Obviously automation has to account for that, or at least a substantial portion of that. And if we bring it up to the present day, output has increased 29% over 2000 while employees dropped by 2.5 million.
Two sides to this story. Baker ignores one of them.
If the Democrats can not impeach President Trump in the House then there is absolutely zero chance of a jury convicting him in a trial. I remind you that a single juror voting no is a win for the defendant. The defendant may be retried but President Trump can afford as many trials as the prosecutors want. Prosecutors are political animals but they will not ruin their careers on a lost cause.
No reasonable person ever believed that the Republican controlled US Senate would remove a Republican president from office on anything but ironclad evidence of a crime! The Democratic party faithful will shrilly berate them but the Republican party faithful will not. (I assume that Independents will be split to some degree.)
So any yes vote on impeachment in the US House will achieve nothing. US House Democratic candidates in more conservative districts are going to be more likely to lose after their yes vote on impeachment. (Only the extremists question that conclusion.)
If I give US House Democrats the benefit of the doubt, then I can believe that Democratic extremists spun weak proof of non existent monsters and US House Democrats were so intimidated that they never demanded adequate proof. (Intimidation and a hatred of Republican President Trump)
Whatever the reason, the Democrats have created their own disaster. I can not imagine any way that they can walk this back before the 2018 election. The best hope for the Democratic party is for Speaker Pelosi to send this impeachment investigation to a committee where it can die a slow dull death.
Speaker Pelosi has the same problem that Speakers Boehner and Ryan had. (Extremists in their political party) The latter two solved their problems with resignations.
A rambling mess of a post. The first paragraph makes no sense whatsoever. This is not a trial. The idea of “one juror ending it” is totally brainless.
Then it gets worse.
You assume that the Dems did not understand what is going to happen in the Senate, then mention what is obviously going to happen in the Senate.
There are two main goals of impeachment by the Dems. Putting trump’s crimes on the record and driving Dem turnout. And then there is a little matter of the rule of law. Trump broke it. Allowing him to be unscathed by his actions would reduce the influence of the Constitution on our government.
It is at its lowest point in our history, and it must stop.
And Pelosi is far too intelligent to take your foolish suggestion about killing it.
To sum up, your post is “a rambling mess’, “totally brainless”, “an attempt to negate the Constitution” and “foolish”.
I’ve never lied in my life. And in no way, shape or form am I thinking about compromise with the Gop. You have to outnumber those evil bastards, and the way to do that is to go left.
You can not possibly believe that all members of the GOP are “evil bastards”, yet you can not restrain yourself.
You wrote: “I’ve never lied in my life.” I believe that a psychologist would have a field day with that remark.
And I know how to spell ‘Liar’ but I did not choose that word. You should learn to appreciate subtle differences.
Your use of superlatives is probably subconscious but nonetheless a tip off as to your personality. Your world has few shades of gray, only black and white. Everyone is either with you or against you. And your inability to foist that world on the rest of us leaves you with a lot of pent up anger.
Relax. I do not believe that you are an “evil bastard”.
There is more than one venue to try Trump in: Southern District of New York, the State of New York and who knows where else — and lots more possible charges are possible than the business of impeachment involves.
Having said all that, I’m not particularly in favor of impeachment myself. Too many pundits see it as helping Trump in the 2020 election somehow — scares me half to death.
Of course you are correct about other court venues. But it would still take 12 jurors to convict.
I have not seen probable cause to believe that President Trump has committed a crime. Too many credible witnesses disagree about what was said on that phone call with the President of the Ukraine. Under the US Constitution, the president is the federal official that is primarily responsible for the relations of the United States with foreign nations. Exactly where does the President’s power end?
A trial would be a he said/he said affair and those never quite settle the issue in the minds of the public. Regardless of the outcome of a trial, about half of the electorate would cry foul.
There are some things not worth doing. Prosecution of a former president probably falls in that category. President Ford pardoned former President Richard Nixon who was so provably guilty that even his fellow Republicans knew that he had to go. I thought that pardon was reasonable back then and I still do. Richard Nixon had left office as a repudiated man, he no longer held any power. A trial back then would have only fanned the flames of partisanship. I think that will probably always be the case.
And now there seems to be some anxiety about US Attorney John Durham’s investigation. If CIA and FBI personnel have not committed criminal acts then why are they concerned. Maybe this investigation will end the way Robert Mueller’s investigation ended. And that would be good enough.
The transcript of Tim Morrison’s testimony just adds more confusion. Tim Morrison did not hear anything improper on that phone call. He questioned Lt. Col. Vindman’s judgement and cited others who agreed. How are we to know which is a more truthful witness?
–
I believe that every working person owes a debt of gratitude to what unions accomplished in the past, especially in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s.
But I don’t know how we reinvigorate unions today since corporations can just move their production to Mexico or buy components from China. That has to be stopped and the only way to do that is by raising tariffs. Corporations are amoral, higher prices are all they truly understand.
Once again, clear proof that trump is a product of decades long GOP wants and desires.
“Two Loony Bill Barr Speeches Show It Didn’t Start With Trump
The crazy has been metastasizing in the Republican Party and the conservative movement for decades.
Then, having embarrassed himself on a spiritual level, Barr went before the Federalist Society and embarrassed himself on a secular political level. Go, Bill! Fetch!
‘The fact of the matter is that in waging a scorched-earth, no-holds-barred war of resistance against this administration, it is the left that is engaged in the systematic shredding of norms and undermining the rule of law. …They are willing to use any means necessary to gain momentary advantage in achieving their end, regardless of the collateral consequences and the systemic implications. … and yet we here them irresponsibly tabling proposals to do away with the electoral college or to pack the courts. Who’s shredding Constitutional norms?’
Again, two specific points: one, this is being done in defense of the most lawless president* in American history and, two, and much more important, these are theories of government that Barr developed while working for Republican presidents since 1989. They are the theories by which he helped cover up the Iran-Contra scandal. They are the theories that underpinned what Dick Cheney did in making this country a country that tortured, and what he did to lie this country into a catastrophic war. (Barr even cited the Cheney and the “unitary executive” theory in his speech, ridiculing the notion that the unitary executive posed any threat to the balance of power.) In both speeches we see not Trumpism, but modern conservative Republicanism in its clearest and most extreme form.
It didn’t start with this president*. And my money’s on the proposition that, sadly, it won’t end with him, either.”
[6] Looking at the actual outcomes, a person might ask, “What in the world were policymakers really thinking about?” – If a person really wants to reduce CO2 emissions, it is easy to see how to do it. A person simply has to take steps in the direction of reducing global co-operation. One step would be to reduce international trade. Another would be to get rid of umbrella organizations such as the World Trade Organization, the United Nations and the European Union. … In other words, policymakers could push economies in the direction of collapse.
Democratic presidential candidates can feel free to absent themselves from an impeachment trial. They can simply explain that the jury is fixed, therefore they cannot absent themselves from the true business of democracy for a sham trial — especially with the (devil) Republicans bragging openly about dragging out the trial just for the purpose of making mischief with the Democratic primary schedules.
Might even be a savvy political move to debunk the Republican “exoneration” of Trump.
* * * * * *
Headline, 1/19/21: Trump flees to Russia to escape criminal prosecution?
Or, maybe if jailed here, Putin will make a deal to trade captured NATO spies (or Snowden?) for Trump. :-O
* * * * * *
Donald Trump is all the president that Al Capone would ever want to be.
I have to tell you, if he loses the Russia relocation makes sense(though the golf sucks). He is going to be convicted after his loss. He is clearly the unindicted co-conspirator in the Cohen conviction.
Big fan of Baker, and I agree that the job losses from 2000 to 2010 were mostly due to trade. But some of his numbers seem to ignore something.
“The New York Times ran a column by Andrew Yang, one of the candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination. Mr. Yang used the piece to repeat his claim that automation is leading to massive job loss.
His one piece of evidence is a study that purports to find that 88 percent of job loss between 2000 and 2010 was due to automation. As I and others have pointed out, it is difficult to take this claim seriously. This was a period in which the trade deficit exploded from 3.0 percent of GDP to almost 6.0 percent of GDP. This would seem to be the more obvious source of job loss.
It is also worth noting that we lost very few manufacturing jobs between 1970 and 2000. Since 2010 we gained a small number of manufacturing jobs. So anyone wanting to push the automation job loss story has to believe that for some reason automation didn’t cause substantial job loss from 1970 and 2000 and then stopped causing job loss in 2010.
I suppose Andrew Yang can believe something like this, but I don’t know too many other people who could consider this story credible.”
http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/making-andrew-yang-smarter?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+beat_the_press+%28Beat+the+Press%29
It is true that the number of manufacturing workers stayed roughly even from 1970 to 2000, yet what is ignored is that the percent of manufacturing workers in the population declined by half during that period.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USAPEFANA
Further, he seems to ignore the manufacturing output during that period. I cannot seem to get Fred to give me a history of such from 1970, but there is this regarding the critical period(according to Baker) of 2000 to 2010.
While we know the decline in the number of workers during that period, but baker seems to ignore manufacturing output.
“Manufacturing jobs in the United States have declined considerably over the past several decades, even as manufacturing output – the value of goods and products manufactured in the U.S. – has grown strongly. But while most Americans are aware of the decline in employment, relatively few know about the increase in output, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
Four of every five Americans (81%) know that the total number of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. has decreased over the past three decades, according to the survey of 4,135 adults from Pew Research Center’s nationally representative American Trends Panel. But just 35% know that the nation’s manufacturing output has risen over the same time span, versus 47% who say output has decreased and 17% who say it’s stayed about the same. Only 26% of those surveyed got both questions right.”
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/25/most-americans-unaware-that-as-u-s-manufacturing-jobs-have-disappeared-output-has-grown/
In that link there is a chart that shows output increased about 25% from 2000 to 2008(and the onset of the recession) and then came back down to the same output level by 2010. And that output was with millions of job losses.
Obviously automation has to account for that, or at least a substantial portion of that. And if we bring it up to the present day, output has increased 29% over 2000 while employees dropped by 2.5 million.
Two sides to this story. Baker ignores one of them.
If the Democrats can not impeach President Trump in the House then there is absolutely zero chance of a jury convicting him in a trial. I remind you that a single juror voting no is a win for the defendant. The defendant may be retried but President Trump can afford as many trials as the prosecutors want. Prosecutors are political animals but they will not ruin their careers on a lost cause.
No reasonable person ever believed that the Republican controlled US Senate would remove a Republican president from office on anything but ironclad evidence of a crime! The Democratic party faithful will shrilly berate them but the Republican party faithful will not. (I assume that Independents will be split to some degree.)
So any yes vote on impeachment in the US House will achieve nothing. US House Democratic candidates in more conservative districts are going to be more likely to lose after their yes vote on impeachment. (Only the extremists question that conclusion.)
If I give US House Democrats the benefit of the doubt, then I can believe that Democratic extremists spun weak proof of non existent monsters and US House Democrats were so intimidated that they never demanded adequate proof. (Intimidation and a hatred of Republican President Trump)
Whatever the reason, the Democrats have created their own disaster. I can not imagine any way that they can walk this back before the 2018 election. The best hope for the Democratic party is for Speaker Pelosi to send this impeachment investigation to a committee where it can die a slow dull death.
Speaker Pelosi has the same problem that Speakers Boehner and Ryan had. (Extremists in their political party) The latter two solved their problems with resignations.
JimH,
A rambling mess of a post. The first paragraph makes no sense whatsoever. This is not a trial. The idea of “one juror ending it” is totally brainless.
Then it gets worse.
You assume that the Dems did not understand what is going to happen in the Senate, then mention what is obviously going to happen in the Senate.
There are two main goals of impeachment by the Dems. Putting trump’s crimes on the record and driving Dem turnout. And then there is a little matter of the rule of law. Trump broke it. Allowing him to be unscathed by his actions would reduce the influence of the Constitution on our government.
It is at its lowest point in our history, and it must stop.
And Pelosi is far too intelligent to take your foolish suggestion about killing it.
To sum up, your post is “a rambling mess’, “totally brainless”, “an attempt to negate the Constitution” and “foolish”.
In other words, per usual for you.
EMichael,
Your reply here is the sort of irrationality that I have come to expect from a Democratic party extremist.
Like the one who wrote at 11:04AM on 2 November 2019:
“For this country to move forward, the Dem Party needs to go further left, and equipped with the knowledge that any of their policies will be dragged to the center by Reps and/or our political reality.”
See: http://angrybearblog.com/2019/11/it-would-not-be-safe-for-democrats-to-play-it-safe.html
Of course, you purposefully forget that compromise is now a dirty word in the US Congress.
And you completely disregard the possibility that the voters will come to believe that they have very little in common with the Democratic party.
And last but not least you speak with a forked tongue.
I’ve never lied in my life. And in no way, shape or form am I thinking about compromise with the Gop. You have to outnumber those evil bastards, and the way to do that is to go left.
BTW,
Another clueless post by you.
EMichael,
As usual you respond with some fiery nonsense.
You can not possibly believe that all members of the GOP are “evil bastards”, yet you can not restrain yourself.
You wrote: “I’ve never lied in my life.” I believe that a psychologist would have a field day with that remark.
And I know how to spell ‘Liar’ but I did not choose that word. You should learn to appreciate subtle differences.
Your use of superlatives is probably subconscious but nonetheless a tip off as to your personality. Your world has few shades of gray, only black and white. Everyone is either with you or against you. And your inability to foist that world on the rest of us leaves you with a lot of pent up anger.
Relax. I do not believe that you are an “evil bastard”.
JimH,
There is more than one venue to try Trump in: Southern District of New York, the State of New York and who knows where else — and lots more possible charges are possible than the business of impeachment involves.
Having said all that, I’m not particularly in favor of impeachment myself. Too many pundits see it as helping Trump in the 2020 election somehow — scares me half to death.
And even if it drives people crazy that I always see one killer issue for the Democrats that nobody sees to pick up on:
https://onlabor.org/why-not-hold-union-representation-elections-on-a-regular-schedule/
Drew,
Of course you are correct about other court venues. But it would still take 12 jurors to convict.
I have not seen probable cause to believe that President Trump has committed a crime. Too many credible witnesses disagree about what was said on that phone call with the President of the Ukraine. Under the US Constitution, the president is the federal official that is primarily responsible for the relations of the United States with foreign nations. Exactly where does the President’s power end?
A trial would be a he said/he said affair and those never quite settle the issue in the minds of the public. Regardless of the outcome of a trial, about half of the electorate would cry foul.
There are some things not worth doing. Prosecution of a former president probably falls in that category. President Ford pardoned former President Richard Nixon who was so provably guilty that even his fellow Republicans knew that he had to go. I thought that pardon was reasonable back then and I still do. Richard Nixon had left office as a repudiated man, he no longer held any power. A trial back then would have only fanned the flames of partisanship. I think that will probably always be the case.
And now there seems to be some anxiety about US Attorney John Durham’s investigation. If CIA and FBI personnel have not committed criminal acts then why are they concerned. Maybe this investigation will end the way Robert Mueller’s investigation ended. And that would be good enough.
The transcript of Tim Morrison’s testimony just adds more confusion. Tim Morrison did not hear anything improper on that phone call. He questioned Lt. Col. Vindman’s judgement and cited others who agreed. How are we to know which is a more truthful witness?
–
I believe that every working person owes a debt of gratitude to what unions accomplished in the past, especially in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s.
But I don’t know how we reinvigorate unions today since corporations can just move their production to Mexico or buy components from China. That has to be stopped and the only way to do that is by raising tariffs. Corporations are amoral, higher prices are all they truly understand.
Name one credible witness to that call that says it was not a bribe.
Meanwhile, wrong again.
“You can not possibly believe that all members of the GOP are “evil bastards”
Yes, I can and I do. Along with a majority of their voters.
Case in point that they are evil bastards.
Once again, clear proof that trump is a product of decades long GOP wants and desires.
“Two Loony Bill Barr Speeches Show It Didn’t Start With Trump
The crazy has been metastasizing in the Republican Party and the conservative movement for decades.
Then, having embarrassed himself on a spiritual level, Barr went before the Federalist Society and embarrassed himself on a secular political level. Go, Bill! Fetch!
‘The fact of the matter is that in waging a scorched-earth, no-holds-barred war of resistance against this administration, it is the left that is engaged in the systematic shredding of norms and undermining the rule of law. …They are willing to use any means necessary to gain momentary advantage in achieving their end, regardless of the collateral consequences and the systemic implications. … and yet we here them irresponsibly tabling proposals to do away with the electoral college or to pack the courts. Who’s shredding Constitutional norms?’
Again, two specific points: one, this is being done in defense of the most lawless president* in American history and, two, and much more important, these are theories of government that Barr developed while working for Republican presidents since 1989. They are the theories by which he helped cover up the Iran-Contra scandal. They are the theories that underpinned what Dick Cheney did in making this country a country that tortured, and what he did to lie this country into a catastrophic war. (Barr even cited the Cheney and the “unitary executive” theory in his speech, ridiculing the notion that the unitary executive posed any threat to the balance of power.) In both speeches we see not Trumpism, but modern conservative Republicanism in its clearest and most extreme form.
It didn’t start with this president*. And my money’s on the proposition that, sadly, it won’t end with him, either.”
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a29829761/william-barr-speeches-trump-secularism-unitary-executive/
They, and their actions, make me ashamed to be an American.
E. Michael go here for Industrial production history
https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g17/current/
Spencer,
Thanks. It would appear that despite losing almost 16 million manufacturing workers since 1970, our production levels have increased almost 200%.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g17/100_years_of_ip_data.htm
That sure ain’t trade.
EM:
Go back and read what NDD said about production levels. He is right on the point he made.
Gail Tverberg clarifies why i’ve been saying Trump has been the best president for the environment since Nixon: Do The World’s Energy Policies Make Sense?
[6] Looking at the actual outcomes, a person might ask, “What in the world were policymakers really thinking about?” – If a person really wants to reduce CO2 emissions, it is easy to see how to do it. A person simply has to take steps in the direction of reducing global co-operation. One step would be to reduce international trade. Another would be to get rid of umbrella organizations such as the World Trade Organization, the United Nations and the European Union. … In other words, policymakers could push economies in the direction of collapse.